A Grey Spirit
by darkmickyangel
Summary: Jack contemplates the reason for his memory loss and Pitch's offer after the battle is said and done. He decides maybe he should take him up on his offer. However perhaps in a different color, one that's not so... pitch black.


AN: this is a small fic that I came up with tonight; I wrote it to my sister on Skype, which is why it has such a weird view point. However I think it gives the story a nice feel, so I'm gonna keep it that way.

I do not own Rise of the Guardians or any of the characters in this story

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After the battle with Pitch, Jack does some thinking and returns to Pitch's layer the next evening after the whole fight. Pitch at the time just so happens to be sitting on one of the bridges in his lair, nursing a black eye when Jack flies in "didn't think you were one to kick someone when they're down" Pitch says sarcastically as Jack walks up behind him, "do your new friends know you're here?"

"No," Jack says frowning, "why would they need to know?"

"give it a few weeks, maybe a month or two" Pitch winces as he takes the rag on his eye and puts it down on the ground, "they'll smother you in affection, i'm going to warn you now all they see when they look at you is a child."

Jack crouches down next to Pitch, laying his staff over his lap. he takes the rag from Pitch, freezes it, and hands it back to him "it works better if it's cold" Pitch looks at him for a second, accepts the rag from Jack and puts it back over his eye.

Neither of them says anything for a second, then Pitch, to curious to resist, asks "what exactly are you doing here?"

"I've been thinking" Jack says, "about everything that has happened over the last few days, what with becoming a guardian and all... and I keep thinking back to the time at the pole, what you said to me, about being alone. At the time, I thought you might have been lying, but after the fight when the kids walked straight through you..." Jack lapsed in to silence for a while, resting his hands on his knees "I could have been you," Jack said after a while, "willing to lapse the whole world into chaos just to be seen. I could have been, if Manny hadn't taken my memories"

Pitch looked over and appraised the three hundred year old boy in front of him, "what do you mean by that?" Pitch asked.

"Well," Jack went from a crouching position to actually sitting on the ledge beside Pitch, legs swinging over the abyss below them, "you see I had a sister, and after i drowned in a lake and became the spirit of winter, she would come and visit that lake every day, up until she got married and had children… I thought it strange, that someone would come and just stare at a lake for hours, then leave without saying anything. but I didn't-" Jack paused, and cleared his throat gently, "if I had remembered that she was my sister, and she was coming there because she had seen me die on that lake... if I had watched the people I had known and lived with pass away with time I NEVER would have been able to move on. Not ever. I would have spent all my time and energy trying to get them to see me, to try to get them to... I don't know really. I probably would have frozen the whole town in a frustration." Jack looked silently at his lap for a second, "but since I didn't remember anything, I moved on. I learned to enjoy little things eventually, and sort of built a new life, not knowing that I left one behind. and now that i have the memories back, well it's easier to deal with not being seen by people who are gone."

"Does it pain you now?" Pitch asked, honestly curious, "to know that the man in the moon manipulated you so? Took away your memories so that you could do your job properly."

Jack looked up, and met Pitch's eyes, "no, not at all, it's just that I... I understand now. Which is all I ever really wanted, you know?"

Pitch couldn't keep looking at the honest expression the kid was giving him, so he broke eye contact, and turned his attention toward the abyss below the both of them "and why would you be telling me all of this?" Pitch asked, swallowing uncertainly.

"Because unlike the other guardians, I understand" Jack said, still looking at Pitch "I understand what it feels like to be alone, forgotten, and invisible. Plus, I'm not like the others. They are nothing but..." Jack paused, thinking for a minute, "they do nothing but... good... they're like white pillars in a black world, all they do is help... people," Jack said, giving up on trying to putting words to his thoughts, "and I'm... well I'm not"

Pitch couldn't help but disagree "i wouldn't count you out of the 'good guy' group Jack, i mean you did just stop me from engulfing the world in fear"

"it's hard to explain!" Jack admitted, "it's just- they don't kill people as part of their job!"

That comment made Pitch sit up and look at the boy next to him, "what?"

"They don't kill people," Jack said evenly, "their jobs do nothing but good, me? Sure I can make anyone have fun playing in the snow, but other than that? winter is cold, it's wet, and it fills the roads with ice, which means people can get into car accidents, sometimes my glaciers crash boats. Sometimes they freeze to death." Jack said the last part very quietly. He took a deep a deep breath and continued on, "what I'm trying to say I guess, is that I'm not as pure white like North and them, I'm not quite black, either... more of an in between. I'm… I'm grey."

"Grey?" Pitch frowned "that's an odd way to put it, but... I see what you mean."

"Thank you" Jack said, almost sighing with relief

"What does all of this have to do with me, though?" Pitch said, fiddling with the still cold rag in his hand, looking at Jack out of the corner of his good eye.

Jack cleared his throat again, and looked down at his hands "what I came here to say is... that I don't think you have to be black Pitch. I think if you can... somehow become like me, grey. That you could be accepted as a guardian again. Not have to endure being alone any longer. and I think... that in order to do that you'll have to do what Manny kind of showed me, let go of the past... and... Learn to start enjoying little things. start over." Jack looked over at Pitch, deep blue eyes offering Pitch a glimpse of something that he the universe hadn't offered to him in a long time, just a simple chance "and I'm willing to help. If you'll let me, that is. We can work together, just like you proposed at the South Pole, just… in a different color"

Pitch leaned away from the kid beside, him, examining him closely. Jack's offer was genuine, and... Tempting. But Pitch's eyes wandered to the area surrounding him, with the shadows and the nightmares lurking everywhere. "Jack," Pitch said after a long time, standing up "I see what you're saying. And well… but my past... it isn't something that can be let go of." Pitch looked down at his hands, not wanting to see if the child in front of him, not wanting to see the disappointment in those snowflake shaped eyes, "I'm sorry, but they call me Pitch Black for a reason." Pitch didn't know why he was apologizing, but he found himself doing it before he knew what he was doing.

Jack was silent for a while, and when he was speaking it sounded like it was coming from someone much wiser than some three hundred year old kid, "I understand," Jack said standing up, "when you change your mind, just come and find me."

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AN: you guys like it? I might add more chapters, if I feel up to it. Though they will probably end up in the form of a different story, possibly a series of one shots.

Jack is young, comparatively. Pitch is some thousands of years old and Jack isn't. so in his eyes 300 year old spirits aren't suppose to be wise, cuse they are still kids.

Toodles


End file.
